Principal Solutions Consultant

About the Role

Solutioning is your primary responsibility. You are the India country expert who owns Payroll / Statutory / Time & Attendance depth for the market. You sit in prospect calls, create need for MS, defend and shape scope, and push deals through to closure. You are not a passive expert — you carry the deal.

Beyond Solutioning, you partner across three functions to make sure the motion holds together: GTM (support and enable Sales), Product (bridge to R&D on functional gaps), and Delivery (track project health post-signature). You do not execute delivery or own partnerships — those live elsewhere. Your job is to close deals and make sure closed deals stay healthy.

Primary Responsibility - Solutioning

Country Expertise

• Statutory framework depth. EPF (12% + 12%), ESI (3.25% + 0.75%), state-wise Professional Tax (KA/MH/WB/TS/AP/TN/GJ/KL/MP/OR), LWF (applicable states), TDS Section 192 across regimes (old vs new), Gratuity, Bonus. Filing calendars: monthly ECR + challan + TRRN (by 15th), TDS challan (by 7th), Form 24Q quarterly, Form 16 by June 15, Form 12BA annual.
• Payroll components. Gross-to-net mechanics, salary structures, reimbursements, garnishments, F&F settlements, prior-vendor cleanup patterns.
• Time & Attendance. Attendance-to-payroll pipelines, overtime rules, PTO / leave policy design, statutory paid leave.
• Compliance rhythm. Notice triage cadence, audit prep, peak-load moments (year-end, statutory season) that customers panic about.

Sales-Call presence

• Create need. Walk a prospect through their own pain in ways they had not articulated. Turn "we already do payroll" into "we already lose Ops leaders to payroll."
• Defend and shape scope. Hold the SKU line where it matters; concede where it wins the deal. Know the difference cold.
• Carry the technical narrative from first-call to signed MSA. RFP responses, security questionnaires, statutory Q&A, delivery walk-throughs.
• Competitive positioning. Displacement plays against ADP India, greytHR, Zoho Payroll, Ramco, Neeyamo, Darwinbox, Zeta, and enterprise incumbents like SAP SuccessFactors + PeopleStrong — know each competitor's weak spots cold.

Secondary Responsibilities

GTM - Support and enable

• Enable Sales (Farming + Hunting) with talk tracks, objection handling, and country-specific scope walkthroughs — delivered via the Enablement team.
• Contribute to MS content the Marketing team produces: pitch decks, scope-by-SKU 2-pagers, displacement battlecards, case studies. Ensure the content is factually correct and prospect-tested.
• Feed back what is landing and what is not from prospect calls, so content and positioning evolve on a fast cadence.

Product - bridge, not build

• Translate recurring prospect and delivery pain into structured Product requirements (not anecdotes).
• Track those requirements through Product's roadmap. When a Product gap blocks an MS deal, pull it forward with a data-backed case.
• When Product ships something useful, get it into pitch decks and battlecards within a week.

Delivery - track, not execute

• Monitor delivery health on the accounts you closed — cycle accuracy, SLA adherence, escalations, renewal signals.
• Flag risks to Delivery leads early; hand off cleanly and stay available as escalation backup.
• Own the debrief when a deal closes — what did we sell, what does Delivery need to deliver, where are the known risks.

What you bring

• Deep payroll expertise for India. You can walk any prospect through statutory framework, filing calendars, and edge cases without notes.
• 6+ years in HR Tech, payroll, or global employer-of-record. Ideally split between hands-on delivery and client-facing / commercial roles. Companies like Keka, Darwinbox, greytHR, Zoho Payroll, RazorpayX Payroll, Zeta, Ramco, springworks, Neeyamo (India) are the right shape of pedigree.
• Sales-call fluency. You have sat in front of CHROs, CFOs, and Heads of People and closed. You know when to push and when to concede scope.
• Strong communication — written and verbal. Comfortable running executive-level prospect calls.
• Numeracy and structured thinking. Comfortable with pricing math and SKU logic; can build your own analysis when the ask is ambiguous.

Nice to have

• Multi-country payroll implementation exposure.
• Formal certifications — CPP / FPC (US), Certified Payroll Manager (India), or geo equivalents.
• Experience contributing to battlecards, competitive positioning, or sales playbooks.
• Bonus depth in ENT-scale multi-state deals or MNC/GCC captive payrolls.